200 years are supposed to passed... And yet, he's still alive. No virtual reality pod with onboard medical equipment could do that much...

And, how did the little lamplight kids survive? Disregarding that they would have breathed irradiated air, (cave is not sealed) how are any kids left after 200 years? I find it unlikely that many of these kids get pregnant.

There are also several other inconsistencies regarding time since the bombs fell...

Ok, firstly the most important lesson. The world of Fallout and its scientific laws are different from our own.

Now with that disclaimer out the way, onto theorising.

Braun could be kept alive with ongoing lifesupport, carefully supervised to guarantee his longevity. Beyond that you could say his body is all but dead, and his brain is being supported within the virtual construct.

As for the children, they eat a special fungus that grows exclusively within the cave, and that absorbs their radiation.

As for the kids being there 200+ years, their scouting parties could bring in wayward kids who have been lost/abandoned in the wasteland. The kids themselves could also procreate within the cave, I don't agree with this but it's possible nonetheless. Or the residents of Big Town send their young there.

My own personal theory (and naturally, my favourite) is that Little lampight is a creche that the Super Mutants setup, it's possible they could salvage new-born children from their raids and deposite them at LL unknown to the kids inside, then they'll grow up, goto Big Town, and be harvested for food/recruitment by the local Super Mutant population in Germantown. I'm not sure if the holodiscs within LL discount this, and there are probably a number of inconsistencies to disprove it, but it's my theory nonetheless ^_^

As for other inconsistencies, yes there are plenty. But it leaves alot to discuss, which is never a bad thing outside of the game

Stasis chamber that slows down all bodily metabolic and neural activity to minimum levels while transferring it to a terminal. Pfeh, really I don't know. They should've just included that in the pseudo-scientific reports.

Why? It's actually pretty likely that most of them do.

Also Raider and scavvers have kids too. Pretty much anyone who has a kid can drop it off there.

Just a thought.

The Lamplight kids are not the original group. All long dead. Everyone has to leave when they reach age 16 in any case. And yes there are huge inconsistencies regarding time. Like 200 year old lights still working, 200 year old food still edible, 200 year old clothes still being worn, 200 year old newspapers and other trash laying everywhere, 200 year old beds still being used. And on and on and on...

The problem with your theory is we have no reason to believe it.

Why?

I'm guessing that it's something like that. Given Fallout's 50s Science! theme, I could easily believe that the simulation pods keep their occupants in a form of suspended animation where only their brain is functioning normally, probably sustained by on-board systems, that's also probably why the people in the simulation, presumably the original inhabitants, with the exception of the player character and James, of course, who were obviously not actually vault residents.

In fact, some sort of technology that could at least allow the brain to be kept alive by machines would probably be necessary to allow Robobrains to remain functional 200 years after the war.

Explanations for the Lamplight children have already been given, they probably take in wandering children, maybe the children get pregnant too, since they don't have to leave until they're sixteen, and teens getting pregnant is not unheard-of (of course it seems wrong to us, but so do a lot of things in Fallout, however, and living in a wasteland doesn't exactly do a lot to develop people's moral standards, even those who have not let themselves become complete bastards would still need to develop a somewhat different set of morals from what most modern developed societies hold, and since there are no children in Big Town, I could imagine that they might send their children away, maybe even back to Little Lamplight, a town that is regularly assaulted by super mutants and slavers where people don't know if they can hope to live to see another sunrise is hardly an ideal environment for raising children.

And yes, Fallout 3 does have a lot of time related inconsistencies, the weapons and armor still being usable I can apply willing suspension of disbelief to, since people would probably maintain them regularly, but the electrical systems in prewar buildings that haven't been lived in for two hundred years still working? And food that's been sitting on the super market shelf for two centuries still being safe to eat beyond a little radiation? That's a little harder to believe, not to mention that fact that while many buildings are partially collapsed, and some are even just empty shells, there are still a fair mount of them that are quite in-tact, beyond being quite warn and dirty, despite being inhabited only by the ancient robots that still guard them or maybe mutated insects. Ultimately, Fallout 3 seems like it would have been more believable if it were set more recently after the Great War, but I guess Bethesda wanted to be able to use familiar factions like the Enclave and Brotherhood of Steel.

In the end, Fallout 3 seems to go for feel over realism in his respect, Bethesda probably wanted you to really be able to tell that you were exploring a post apocalyptic Washington DC, you really got this feeling when you saw familiar landmarks, albeit in varying states of ruin.

Smartest thing said in this thread.

How could food last 200 years? Special preservatives invented to make food never spoil.

They can make Androids and repair robots im sure people can make lights work.

You have to think of a couple things. This game is not real life. Things back then were a lot different than our world.

Well, out of all the reasons someone could have for discounting a theory, this one is the most bizarre

I could elaborate and say maybe the original inhabitants of Little Lamplight (or any future inhabitants for that matter) could have been captured by Muties, exposed to F.E.V, then with their new found goals and ideals (the capturing and consuming of humans) combined with their prior knowledge of Little Lamplight and Big Town, put two and two together and created a base of operations at Germantown.

I like my theory, and I'm not too bothered by how inconsistent/ridiculous it may be. It's just a bit of fun and I like to think the Mutants have given this some hard (albeit painful) thought

Whilst its a good theory (and I quite like it), I think he meant the lack of in game proof. There isnt anything to suggest the muties wouldnt dip a kid, or that the kids are placed there by the muties...

There is no in game evidence to suggest such a thing, and we have not received any word of god from the dev's to indicate that this hypothesis is the case.


Its a nice hypothesis, but its really no more than a flight of fancy.

That's why I can believe the electrical and mechanical systems still working in inhabited places (in fact, two hundred years after the war, I'd expect people to do more to rebuild than Fallout 3 shows.) What is hard to explain is when the lights still work in buildings that seem not to have been used since the war.



I agree with this statement, there is no evidence to prove it wrong that I know of, but that doesn't indicate that it's true, we have no reason to believe that it's true either, so it's really little more than an unfounded guess. And if we want to speculate on the reason Little Lamplight still remains, we should look at simpler series.

There is evidence, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to base a theory on the facts (proximity of both locations to Mutant outposts, as one example) and so what if the devs haven't commented? Original devs of the series didn't have concrete answers to some inconsistencies until they were questioned, and even they on occasion openly left certain details to be filled in any way an individual would see fit, it's not always about the devs word being law (or lore, if you like puns). Game-based theories require a degree of speculation and imagination. I think it's a little more than a flight of fancy, but as I stated, it's my theory, and it satisfies me, and I'm happy enough with that. Feel free to contest it, but I simply wont agree that it's based on a whim, I have given it a fair degree of thought


Of course it's not true or false, it's speculation >_< I don't think my specualtion has to be any more or any less a 'look at simpler series'. Whilst you may not agree with it, you cannot discount it or indeed account for it, you can at least accept it as a theory. It's far fetched I agree, but without indisputable evidence to the contrary, it's my story and I'm sticking to it

Of course in a review of my theory, it's safe to say that LL wasn't set up as a mutant 'farm', so I will personally discount this one inconsistency, and I only worded it so because I didn't want to elaborate. But it doesn't mean that it didn't become an opportunity the Mutants caught wind of. The kids are perfect candidates, taking this directly from lore, anyone 'contaminated' with a certain amount of radiation will ghoulify if exposed to F.E.V and not super mutate at all, the children in LL have the good fortune of a fungus that absorbs their rads, keeping them safe from any long term side-effects of radiation exposure. This is a huge green light for Muties, and they know exactly how F.E.V works, it's the reason the masters army headed for vault 12 (Necropolis) because of the prospect of pure, unirradiated humans, but all they found were ghouls, because the vault was programmed never to close. They then caught wind of a vault 13, and canon states they would have found the vault 13 and harvested the inhabitants if it wasn't for the original vault dweller's intervention on the Master's plans.

LL/Bigtown scenario has alot of possitives associated with mutant interest. I find it very hard to believe that LL has been left alone by the Muties for no good reason, LL being such an immediate proximity to Vault 87.

An interesting theory. But the DC muties are much dumber than the west coast ones. With no power to the LL vault 87 door (until the Lone Wanderer fixes it), I doubt the muties would have tried to exit that way (too stupid to repair the door). I don't think the muties are smart enough to make the connection between LL and Big Town either. The muties you overhear talking in the police station confirm this. One mutie says "we've got almost all the little people from Big Town eh?". The other mutie says "what then?" To which the first mutie replies, "We'll go find more, somewhere else". This doesn't sound much like a farming operation IMO..

That's true, I do recall that dialogue. That's a great shame then, it had so much scope

The radiation sterilized the food, and since they were sealed, they didn't get recontaminated, and didn't rot. Chemical denaturation should still have occurred, but it's not that farfetched that it was still edible.



It was the institute that made the androids, not 'people'. I'm sure they have working lights there.

You are more likely to believe that the super mutants hatched this whole big plot farming idea over teenagers getting frisky and letting nature take it's course?

Well, as I have personally discounted that the Super Mutants probably didn't set the whole thing up, more that it became a mere convenient opportunity, I am less likely to believe either

All I know is, if it is indeed pre-teen procreation, then Bethesda have made yet another mockery of sixual reference in Fallout 3. We all know about the cringe worthy scenario where you get to sleep with Nova in the most embarassing and patronising un-nod to six in a post-apocalyptic world. Why then would they goto the trouble of creating a community which they then need to censor. I'm not talking about anything graphic, or even dialogue rich, just some reference to their methods of procreation, of which there is none. Why then, include an all-child community in the first place.

I don't get the impression there's any procreating going on in Lamplight at all. It seems that everyone has just gravitated there from all over the wasteland; orphans whose parents were killed by raiders, slavers, creatures etc. And if the 13-16 year olds were in fact having kids of their own, it doesn't make sense they'd abandon their 1-3 year old child when it comes time to be exiled to "Mungo Land". There is a lot that doesn't add up about Lamplight. Having an entire community of children is just a plot device that some devs thought would be cool IMO..

I think the VR pods are supposed to have some sort of equipment that freezes the occupants' physical form. If you look at the people inside the pods w/ the Pip - Boy light, some of them like Braun look old but definately not over 200 years. Another thing: the occupants seem to blink and breathe inside the pods but, instinct or not, those movements are voluntary (for example, you can put off blinking or breathing but you can't stop your heartbeat). If these people are totally submerged in VR, how is this possible?

As for Little Lamplight, the kids get sent there from Big Town (or so the people there say). My theory is that Little Lamplight was therfore "created" by Big Town residents to protect the kids from Super Mutant attacks, and in turn Big Town was founded by people from one of the seventeen vaults not subject to experiments.

The one thing to explain it all: Nuclear Power.

Back in the 50's it did freaking anything - It made Spider Man, The Hulk, The Sandman, Fantastic Four...



I would just go with people taking children to Lamplight because "They would be safe there" or "Would have a better life". Of course, unbeknown to the parents about the evolution waste landers have gone through to create an in-built defense system (Which goes away after Puberty)

actually breathing is not voluntary otherwise you'd suffocate when you slept.
it's simply a muscle reflex we can learn to control (just as some people have learned a modicum of control over their heart)

and blinking is also something that just happens you don't need to think about it to make it happen.
yet it is something we can learn to control to a degree aswell (you can blink with your eyes whenever you want, but try to stop from blinking practically impossible)

Good point. I'm not too sure about this but from the realism and movements of Tranquility Lane and O:A it seems like every would - be muscle movement is translated into VR. Someone in a VR pod has no way of moving their physical form in real life otherwise you could exit these pods at any time (providing you could do it without any senses). I didn't really think about it that way, maybe breathing and blinking are the only muscles one can move while in a simulator?